Big Surprise

WASHINGTON — The incoming leaders of the House Transportation Committee on Friday called the new airport pat-down procedures “overly intrusive” and demanded that the Transportation Security Administration restrict their use.

In a letter to the TSA, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., and Rep. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., who are set to assume leadership of aviation issues in Congress next year when Republicans take control, said only the highest risk passengers should be subjected to the more aggressive pat-downs.

It is the harshest reaction to date on the new searches from key leaders in Congress…

Mica is expected to become chairman of the full Transportation Committee, and Petri is in line to lead the Aviation Subcommittee.

“Really now, who thinks the public will put up with the kind of behavior that would get you arrested if you weren’t working for the government?” Petri said. “Do we really expect Grandma to go through this?”

Poor, abused Grandma. First, put to grinding, rhetorical death on Obama’s rack of health care reform, now unceremoniously groped before a crowd of Adbools and Mo’s.

Seriously, were there people out there who thought that this whole “junk thing” would turn into a larger critique of the security state? I mean, did you really think that after several years of complaints from Muslim and other groups, and one admission after the other by the TSA that it racially profiles fliers, all to the thunderous silence of the American public, that this would be some kind of clarion call to break all of our chains, to lift all boats?

Or did you not understand that it would quickly fall into the abyss of racial politics as exploited by Republican war-mongers against Democratic war-mongers? I got to wonder. I may not be the brightest bulb in the box garden–but growing up Palestinian-Colombian-American, you learn a few things.

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Hi, this is my first time here, and I thought this was an interesting post. I’ve been hearing a lot about this issue recently, both from libertarians*, who want to abolish the TSA, and conservatives, who want to turn this into a game of identity politics**.

I’m not too concerned about these Republicans — this is just the normal sleaze from them, and I really doubt that the TSA would formalize profiling. However, there is one question I have for these Republicans, which I haven’t gotten an answer for: if we are to profile, then should we provide compensation to the people who are searched?

Well, it wouldn’t necessarily have to, would it? Police departments don’t ordinarily formalize profiling either, but of course they do it, all the time. Even if the remarks of Mica and Petri are not translated into official policy, they absolutely set a certain (skin) tone, which no doubt is the idea.

Yes. That’s my point in a way. We all know that they profile; they’ve been sued enough times. But its never caused any significant amount of uproar from the polity in general. This is one of the reasons why there can be no real solidarity across class and race [let’s not even talk about gender], because people are so differently situated and find it difficult to become mobilized over “someone else’s” problem. White folks shunning the crotch-clutch, aren’t going to include an end to profiling in their demands. Its neither on their radar, nor a useful idea for their platform. Likewise, the TSA won’t admit they do it, and can quite easily rid themselves of the furor by modifying their stated policies to again only target relatively powerless minorities. Indeed, the only reason that the TSA didn’t respond to the underwear bomber with official racial profiling, is that they certainly would have been hammered for doing it above board and on paper. For a largely theatrical organization, the only thing they could do was add a new technology, while they continue to profile under the old unofficial guidelines and hope for the best.